Tasawwuf al-Razi

July 18th, 2008 by Shaykh Gibril Fouad Haddad

ON TASAWWUF Imam Fakhr al-Din Razi (d. 606)

“A Shafi`i scholar of genius and a mujtahid Imam in tenets of faith, he was among the foremost figures of his time in mastery of rational and traditional Islamic sciences, and preserved the religion of Ahl al-Sunna from the deviations of the Mu`tazilites, Shiites, Anthropomorphists, and other aberrant sects of his era.”1

He wrote in his I`tiqadat firaq al-muslimin wa al-mushrikin:

The summary of what the Sufis say is that the way to the knowledge of Allah is self-purification and renunciation of material attachments, and this is an excellent way… Sufis are a folk who work with reflection and the detaching of the self from materialistic trappings. They strive in order that their inner being be solely occupied with the remembrance of Allah in all of their occupations and their actions, and they are characterized by the perfection of their manners in dealing with Allah. Verily these are the best of all the sects of human beings.2